


The Chauffeur

by unlovelySara



Category: British Royalty RPF
Genre: Diana Princess of Wales - Freeform, Diana Spencer, Gen, Princess Diana, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 05:19:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2800994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unlovelySara/pseuds/unlovelySara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Polaroid of the night between August 30 and 31, 1997; inspired by Duran Duran’s <i>The Chauffeur</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chauffeur

**_The Chauffeur_ **  
( _The aphids swarm up in the drifting haze_ )  
  


A day in the end of August, half past midnight.  
In spite of the city already being enveloped by the dark, the silhouettes of Cours la Reine’s trees are however able to be reflected on the window, surrounding you like many not so friendly hands.  
On the spot where they disappear, your attention prefers to focus on Pont Alexandre III and the small waves of the Seine – that the illuminations had turned into liquid snake scales – instead of concentrating upon the Grand Palais of the Universal Exposition.  
(Maybe because it reminds you of a royal building? _Maybe_.)  
Soon after the trees resume to touch the windows, almost like the photographers that haven’t stopped to besiege you not even for an instant… you try again to think about the sun that there was today in Olbia, unbelievably intense and so different from the one that you’ve always seen from your room in Kensington Palace, and the more sleepy one that a few hours ago has welcomed you at Paris-Le Bourget Airport turning the sky into a coral pool.  
You sigh.

_And the sun drips down bedding heavy behind_

As lost in your thoughts as you are, you don’t immediately notice that you already are in Cours Albert 1er: only when you have caught sight of a nearer Seine you have finally realized to have changed lane and that Henry Paul is really going heavy on the gas pedal.  
“For losing the paparazzi”, he quickly explains, as if he has felt your worry silently crawling from the back seat, and soon after turns the car radio on.  
But just a few notes broadcasted by France Inter Paris frequency are necessary to make you relax: even though the song has already started, you recognized it at the drop of a hat.  
The times of _A View To a Kill_ ’s premiere, when you had made Birmingham’s Fab Five laugh telling them how, a few days before, Reagan had called you ‘Princess David’, seem light years away: now even John, the one that in a certain sense has always been your favorite, has left the band… and you haven’t a crown on your head anymore, _but that’s another matter_. 

_The front of your dress all shadowy lined_

The rarefied and ethereal atmosphere of the song is even able to make you forget about all the photographers hot on your heels: at this precise moment you even remember that particular day when someone of Kensington’s personnel had found you intent on listening to it, stating that such a disturbing and mysterious composition totally clashed with the rest of the album and that it wasn’t really right to be the new single.  
And what did you answer?  
“There lies its peculiarity… like the haze in August: a few months later it would bother, but in that particular time of the year you can’t do anything except being unbelievably attracted by it” you repeat yourself in a whisper, fifteen years and various scars later, while Dodi steals a glance at your profile.  
He has noticed your lips moving, that slowly pronouncing inaudible words of yours, but he doesn’t ask you for an explanation – and in the end it’s better this way, you wouldn’t be able to give him a complete enough answer.

_And the droning engine throbs in time with your beating heart_

Henri Paul has just entered Pont de l’Alma tunnel when the outlines of some insects come close your window: you instinctively press your nose to the glass, as if you’d want to make sure that they really aren’t the aphids of the song, but the lights in the tunnel have already make them run away.  
You turn yourself again toward the car’s inside, noticing out of the corner of your eye that the shadows are projecting strange games on the skirt of your dress and, with a melancholy gaze, you absent-mindedly look for dew drops on Dodi’s face.  
Soon after you smile about yourself, apprentice _chauffeur_ shut within the four walls of a song of fifteen years ago, and you almost don’t notice the abrupt turn of the wheel, nor the flash (maybe the last ray of the sun, got stuck in the windshield?) that immediately follows it.

The ocarina, in the meantime, keeps on playing in the background. 

_Sing blue silver_  
 _Sing, sing blue silver…_

**Author's Note:**

> Ø Birmingham’s Fab Five are, obviously, Duran Duran  
> Ø _A View To a Kill_ is the title of a movie of the James Bond series and of the song that Duran Duran wrote for the film soundtrack: keyboardist Nick Rhodes has stated that during the première Diana told them about Reagan’s gaffe  
>  Ø John Taylor, who had left the band in January 1997, was Diana’s favorite member: the bass player doesn’t recall this particular, bur Andy Taylor has confirmed this detail a few times, so I’m pretty satisfied :D  
> Ø The episode of Diana listening to _The Chauffeur_ in Kensington Palace takes place between November and December 1982 and it’s obviously a figment of my imagination
> 
>  
> 
> The first time I listened to Duran Duran’s _The Chauffeur_ , the song immediately reminded me of Diana Spencer: there was something about the atmosphere that made me think about a night in Paris, at the end of the summer, and some lyrics seemed to fit for the whole situation – the title was perfect too.  
> So I thought that maybe someday I would have written something about this little idea I had got: but one day I found this comment on Youtube: “Being that Duran Duran was Lady Di’s favorite band, I’ve always envisioned that this track was playing in the car that fateful night.”  
> I was shocked because somebody has had my same thoughts about this song, so I immediately decided to write _that something_ about it and, well, here I am!  
>  I hope the final result won’t disappoint you and I apologize in advance if there’ll be some mistakes: I translated it from Italian, my mother tongue.


End file.
